Thinking outside the box

A collaborative community mural is set to add a splash of colour and local character to the neighbourhood surrounding the city’s south-east Box Factory Community Centre – and you could influence its design!

A two-storey brick wall adjacent to the Box Factory, located near Hutt Street at 59 Regent Street South, makes an ideal urban canvas and local mural artist Sarah Boese is just the person to bring it to life.

Sarah has created some 14 murals in community spaces over the past three years (like her piece ‘Turtle’ in Berri, pictured above) featuring her trademark colourful, fluid and bold graphic style. Having now been commissioned by the City of Adelaide to create a mural that represents and empowers the city’s south-east community – she’s reaching out to locals for their valuable input.

Throughout August, Sarah will head up the ‘Mural Design Series’ comprising three free community workshops at the Box Factory. Local residents are invited to attend one or all of the workshops, to share their design ideas and learn some mad aerosol art skills along the way. Sarah said the workshop participants will generate ideas and explore unexpected ways to visually represent them in the final design.

“The great thing about bringing a group of diverse people together is that it creates an opportunity to take the design in a direction that is completely different to ideas I would otherwise develop autonomously,” said Sarah.

“It’s also a great way for people to feel connected to the artwork and feel a sense of ownership and pride.”

If you can’t make the workshops, or group assignments aren’t your thing, you can add your voice to the design discussions by participating in an easy online survey. It takes about four minutes to complete and is open until midnight on Thursday 23 August 2018.

When Sarah brings the final mural design to life later this year, she hopes it will both brighten the immediate neighbourhood and provide an experience for the viewer.

“Art at this scale can be transformative in many ways,” said Sarah.

“It has the potential to draw people to a space and can promote creativity. It can encourage discussion around interesting and often important topics and can also have an impact by simply being beautiful, interesting and improving the look and feel of the space.”

Georgie Smith

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